Helferich (HPL) SMS Patent Defeated

Select quotes from Judge Darrah's Ruling

August 14, 2013: The lawsuits against content providers are over due to exhaustion, but since the patents are still being re-examined by the USPTO, we still believe they will ultimately turn out to be invalid as well. The best summary on that is by our friend Rich Eicher at Skycore: Helferich SMS Patents and the Misuse Doctrine.

SUMOTEXT president Tim Miller said, "The third and final wave of provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA) became effective in March. These provisions greatly expand the definition of prior art and introduce the use of post grant reviews. This will make it much quicker and cheaper for companies to defend themselves from patent trolls while tilting the financial equation away from coersed license agreements."

"HPL has licensed its patents to the entire handset manufacturing industry and received a licensing fee from each handset manufacturer."

"If HPL were then permitted to prosecute every third party sending content to a licensed handset device for infringement, HPL would, by definition, receive multiple royalties for its previously licensed (and therefore, exhausted) patent."

"The doctrine of patent exhaustion is designed to avoid double recovery by a patentee, promote the orderly administration of patent rights, provide an efficient method for determining the termination of the patent monopoly, and promote fair competition. To permit HPL to recover multiple times on the same patent by selling licenses to the patents piece by piece (or claim by claim) is contradictory to these policies supporting the doctrine of patent exhaustion."

"The primary purpose of our patent laws is not the creation of private fortunes for the owners of patents but is ‘to promote the progress of science and useful arts.’” Quanta, 553 U.S. at 626 (quoting Motion Picture Patents: Co. v. Universal Film Manufacturing Co., 243 U.S. 502, 511 (1917)."